Nothing to Lose
by kosovaheartland
Summary: "Breathe. Just breathe. Inflate and deflate, expand and contract, momentary pause in between the inhale and exhale and a second or so longer on the exhale; have confidence that brief pause, that slowing down of the whole cycle just for a moment, isn't going to prove itself detrimental." Set during 2x07, Cosima's thoughts between her fight with Delphine and calling Sarah.
1. Chapter 1

**This is for the lovely god-save-the-quinn on tumblr, who requested a Cosima monologue to slot in between her fight with Delphine and her call to Sarah in 2x7. Sorry it took me so long, I went a bit perfectionist over it! Hope you enjoy :)**

**It's actually turned into a two-parter, part two is almost finished but not quite, and I go on holiday this weekend so if you want part two before then you guys are going to have to review and let me know- come on, you know you want to ;) This is my second Orphan Black fic I've published but the first one I wrote as most of this chapter was completed before I started working on my light relief one, so I would really love to know what you think. **

**I'm also looking for ideas for a side project to work on while I'm away next week, I'll be writing by hand and it's just easier to do something totally different. I'm leaning towards a missing scene from the season kind of thing, so if you have any requests please do let me know- I identify more with Cosima I think, but I'm up for a challenge :) **

**Emeline x**

**Part I**

Breathe. Just breathe.

Inflate and deflate, expand and contract, momentary pause in between the inhale and exhale and a second or so longer on the exhale; have confidence that brief pause, that slowing down of the whole cycle just for a moment, isn't going to prove itself detrimental. Stand tall, don't slouch; slouching compresses the lungs, limits the volume of oxygen that can be pumped through into the blood. Deep breaths, no panicking, relaxed, faithful- faith in this fundamental life process, in the human body's ability to pump oxygen around itself methodically, automatically, no concentration upon this action required.

Don't think about it; that's the key. Thinking about it is nothing but a waste of energy when respiration is inbuilt, a given, and energy isn't exactly something that she has in surplus at the moment; she's reminded of that more and more with each passing day. There's no sense in allowing herself to worry unnecessarily about something that- at this point in proceedings, at least, her body is still managing to cope with on autopilot, no additional effort needed.

Not yet.

Deep down, she has a horrible feeling it might just come to that, before this nightmare is over.

Of course, she has something of an idea of what the next few months, weeks, even, might have in store for her. In a way, she's already experienced it. Much to her dismay (though she would never admit to it dismaying her, not under any circumstances) she's fast becoming accustomed to the sensation of her breath catching in her throat, the feeling of an elastic band squeezing shut her windpipe as she fights for air.

It's the heaviness of her lungs; that's the part of it all that never fails to take her by surprise. Perhaps she's experienced enough desperate coughing fits by now that she should have become used to it, at least a little, but somehow she finds that in between episodes she's able to forget. Perhaps it's something of a survival technique, her brain blocking out all recollections of the traumatic sensation in order that she doesn't live in fear in between.

She likes that explanation. She's a scientist, a rationalist, and the science she prefers is that in which the facts are laid out, rationalised by a hypothesis that can be proven true or false, laid out in graphs and tables of statistic. Psychology is not so much her thing, but all the same, she would far rather tell herself that what's really at play here is some sort of instinctual blocking out of a panic, a pain, that she has no means of controlling.

She prefers that explanation by far to the idea that perhaps that horrible, heavy, lead feeling in her lungs takes her by surprise each and every time a coughing fit comes over her because it's getting worse every time, because her condition is deteriorating at such a rate that the pain is noticeably worsening.

She might be a scientist, a dealer in often harsh realities, but that doesn't mean there aren't times during which she can't quite bring herself to face up to the facts.

Now is one of those times.

It is getting worse with each fit she experiences; she knows that much to be true. She's been forced to take more care in disposing of her used tissues because things have moved on a little alarmingly since her first confession to Delphine that she was sick, because by now it's somewhat uncommon for her to peel a handful of tissues away from her mouth and not find it caked in thick clots of blood. (Which, of course, is TMI by far. Obvs.) She refuses to allow this illness to consume her, for it to change the way she thinks, the way she understands, and yet at the same time she doesn't need her science and her blood tests and her DNA profiling to know she's dying.

Perhaps her biological testing and her genetic screening, her analyses of the functioning of her lungs and her heart, the measurements of the growths clinging to the walls of her uterus, are the most accurate indicators, but they lack a certain shock factor that those heavy clots of blood never fail to deliver.

She's not convinced she'll ever succeed in finding words powerful enough to describe the panic that overcomes her in the midst of those coughing fits. Sometimes she can feel them coming on, almost inexplicably, becomes slowly but surely aware of a tightening in her chest until finally it becomes too much and she's coughing, spluttering, struggling to breathe. But on other occasions there's no warning at all; one minute she feels perfectly fine, having almost forgotten the sickness that attempts to dominate her body, and then all of a second her chest contracts violently and she can't breathe, and the harder she fights to force oxygen through into her lungs the more of a struggle it becomes.

It's terrifying. She would never admit to that, is far too ashamed to admit she's weak enough that she allows this to frighten her. She _can't_ admit that it frightens her, not when she has her genetic identicals to consider. She's not the first to develop this illness, of course, it's not as though her clones aren't aware that this is potentially on their horizons, but this is the closest to home it's ever been. She very much doubts that the knowledge of Jennifer and Katja's illnesses in itself has been enough to instil much of a real sense of fear into Sarah and Alison, not when they never knew them. They were never forced to witness a gradual deterioration- not in person, at least, and not to someone to whom they felt an emotional connection.

She had vowed to protect them from all that. She had been so determined of it, once upon a time, had sworn to herself that her clone sisters (is it horribly sentimental and Helena- esque to be referring to Sarah and Alison as her 'sisters'? Most likely so) would never learn of her illness, that somehow, together, she and Delphine would develop a treatment before she took any sort of dramatic turn for the worse. She would have never needed to reveal that this respiratory failure had attempted to consume her had her meticulously thought out plan gone accordingly, would have kept it a secret until, god forbid, one of them, even Kira, had come down with it themselves, then she'll start them on the treatment as soon as she possibly can and tell them she and Delphine developed it as a precautionary measure, nothing more.

There was no reason either Sarah or Alison should ever know she'd developed Katja and Jennifer's respiratory failure, come close to Jennifer's fate. That was what she had told herself, at the start of all this, what now feels like a lifetime ago but in reality has been little more than a week.

It wasn't supposed to play out like this.

She's running out of options now, and she's only too aware of it. She's been aware of it all along, in all honesty, has known since the first symptoms that a stem cell match was most likely going to be her best option, if not her only one. It might not be her area of expertise, not as such, but she's studied the more medical side of human biology in enough depth in the past to know that a stem cell match is her lifeline, to understand why it's her lifeline to a far greater extent than most. Delphine had known it too, of course; this is what Delphine _does_, after all, what she had planned to dedicate her life to until she had found herself entangled in all this DYAD clone-fest crap.

On that basis alone, she should have known it was too good to be true. All the rest of it aside- the fact that the odds of coming up with a random, completely unrelated match so quickly are and were, by the laws of genetics so low, coupled with the practical impossibility of locating a blood relative separate from the cloning experiment and her corrupted DNA. She should have had the common sense to bear in mind that Delphine is her monitor, is DYAD, that it's her role to keep her alive.

Of course Delphine will try anything; it's her job, after all, it's what she was recruited for. Hell, if the rest of the DYAD group is anything to go by, Delphine was probably carefully trained to be horribly ruthless and sociopathic long before she was ever allowed anywhere near Minneapolis. Protect your subject, follow your orders, keep them alive at all costs and all that crap. She wouldn't be surprised.

And it's easier for Delphine, of course; her academic background ensures that's a given. Surely it must be instilled in all of this experiment's monitors to do whatever it takes to keep their subject alive (unless DYAD cries 'terminate', that is- then it's a different matter altogether), but Delphine is an immunologist.

There's no doubt in her mind that right from the first onset of symptoms, from her first confession of there being something wrong with her, at least a part of Delphine viewed her body, her condition, as a golden opportunity for potentially ground-breaking experimental research.

She never really thought of it quite like that before, not until she overheard that conversation between Delphine and Scott in the corridor outside her DYAD lab. She was blinded, she supposes; blinded by love, in over her head just like Sarah had previously warned her not to allow herself to become. For a while, it had become so easy to forget almost entirely that Delphine was her monitor, push all thoughts of it to the back of her mind and exist in blissful ignorance, pretend that this newly kindled relationship was one of love from the perspectives of both parties.

Not anymore, of course. Not now.

Now, as horribly cliché as it sounds, she feels as though her heart has been torn in two.

Metaphorically- she hopes merely metaphorically, anyway. Her lungs are already giving up on her slowly but surely; the last thing she needs is for her heart to give out as well.

Was it ever really love? On Delphine's part, at least; Cosima knows only too well that she was in deep herself, that she's never felt quite so alive, so… so inexplicably herself, somehow, than she has since she met Delphine.

But did Delphine ever love her back?

That's the real question; the one that has been playing on Cosima's mind, haunting her, ever since that horrible confrontation which had ended with her throwing Delphine out, reprogramming the entry-card system to ensure that she couldn't come grovelling back.

Cosima doesn't want to see Delphine again; of that much she is certain.

Not until she's had some time to think.

She can't make up her mind, is completely, horribly uncertain, as far as the question of the moment is concerned. She's not used to this- not being certain, that is- she's used to biology, chemistry at a stretch, a world in which there's a right and a wrong answer, and the correct one can be determined using logic and reason, memory recall and proving the facts.

Love isn't like that. Love lacks the logical basis on which science is founded, and for that very reason it's almost impossibly difficult to rationalise, to understand.

In short, love is like goddamn humanities: numerous interpretations potentially accurate and no definite answer.

Cosima hated humanities subjects in high school for that very reason.

She _needs_ to make up her mind, of course; she absolutely must crack this. It's essential. The conclusion she comes to affects everything, will be the deciding factor in whether or not she forgives Delphine, takes her back.

The conclusion she comes to over this will determine whether or not she allows Delphine to be a part of her future, but it absolutely will not under any circumstances cause her to change her stance as far as her illness is concerned, persuade her to go through with Delphine's proposed treatment.

She hopes Delphine shoves that particular treatment proposal wherever DYAD lost the original genome, and Kira's stem cells with it.

She refuses to take advantage of an innocent child like that, let alone Sarah's child.

Sarah and Kira are deep enough in this DYAD shit already, without Kira becoming Cosima's means of survival for the next god knows how many years.

That's how she sees it, at least.

She'd like to believe that Delphine did it because she loves her. There are two possibilities- two that Cosima has come up with, at least- and out of those two, this is by far her favourite scenario. She would love with all of her heart to believe that Delphine carried on injecting her with Kira's stem cells even after she knew what they were, who they came from, because she loves her, because the thought of her dying was simply too much to bear and she simply had to take action, even knowing it wouldn't go down well.

Every part of her very soul desires desperately to become somehow convinced that Delphine only kept the origins of those stem cells a closely guarded secret knowing that she would never agree to continue with the treatment if only she knew. Ever since she kicked Delphine out of her lab she's been sat here, head in her hands between coughing fits, trying her hardest to believe that Delphine loves her so much that she simply couldn't bear to lose her, that to her, betraying her lover had appeared to be the lesser of the evils, in the long term, at least.

That's what Cosima would like to believe. And not only because it's a far more appealing option to her than the alternative, either; Cosima is horribly desperate for that explanation to be the most accurate of the options because the thought of all the happiness of the last few months having been artificial, contrived, is by far the most distressing part of this. She almost doesn't care if Delphine _did_ see her merely as the perfect guinea pig for ground-breaking experimental immunity research; that's the least of her problems.

The possibility of having being viewed as biological property by yet another DYAD scientist doesn't upset her half as much as the thought that all this time she's believed herself to be in a loving relationship, because she was just so stupid and blind and failed to see through Delphine's act, and really, all along, it was merely a matter of whatever it took to gain her trust, keep her close enough to exploit her very existence.

Sarah would most likely tell her that she's totally focussing on the wrong bit of this, and Cosima knows it.

But knowing it doesn't make her stance on this any different.

She isn't completely stupid; she does know she can be horribly naïve at times. She does know of course that she isn't totally lacking in common sense. She must have a certain degree of it, at least; she's a scientist, must have exhibited enough intelligence to make it onto her PhD course, to be accepted into Berkley in the first place.

Then again, Cosima supposes there's a considerable distinction between intelligence and basic common sense.

And on that topic, she's reasonably certain given today's developments that she's sadly lacking in the later.

She always was too trusting, even when she was a child. Perhaps it was somewhat inevitable; growing up as an only child who had struggled socially when she had started… well, throughout school, really, never really felt entirely accepted by her classmates. Perhaps her whole life until quite recently she's struggled so much to feel included, to be liked, that when someone approaches her she clings for dear life, blinded. Often she's so pleased that someone truly wants to get to know her, hasn't written her off as a science geek for a change, that she trusts too easily, fails to realise that the friendship, relationship, whatever it is, may not be quite as innocent and honest as it seems.

In a sense, Cosima supposes she should have learnt the error of her ways by now. It's been years since she was first let down by a so-called friend, since that first occasion on which she had realised her new friend was only making an effort with her because she wanted her to do her math homework, and yet still she falls for it, every time.

She wants to trust people. She just wants to please people, really; that's the problem. She doesn't want people to resent her, she just wants to be liked, to have friends, doesn't want even the people in her life she isn't particularly close with to resent her.

She lets strangers in far too easily, in short. She lets people become close to her far too easily and far too quickly, and far too often she suffers the consequences.

All that remains to be determined is whether or not Delphine really did enter into a relationship with her merely for her biology.

Then again, Cosima sighs to herself- and then before she's quite registered what's happening the sigh becomes a cough, and she's bent over, tissue pressed to her mouth as she gasps for breath, anxious, chest tight, until this latest fit subsides- does it really matter, either way? She isn't convinced, not really. She still loves Delphine, of course, couldn't possibly detach herself from her that quickly after giving away her heart so freely.

And yet, at the same time Cosima just can't see past the fact that either way, whether this was all some sort of conspiracy to use her as a clinical trial subject or truly carried out with the best of intentions, Delphine lied to her. Delphine kept the fact that the stem cell match came from Kira a secret because she knew it would upset her, knew she would view it as a step too far, an exploitation of an innocent child, lacking the consent of her mother. Delphine has only met Sarah once, briefly, in… unusual circumstances, she supposes; she's not sure quite how else to describe it.

Perhaps the fact that when she met Sarah for the first time, she had originally believed her to be Cosima, has something to do with her feeling somewhat detached towards her. Perhaps it can explain Delphine's having no problem with using Kira's stem cells to cure her girlfriend (Cosima isn't going dwell on whether or not 'girlfriend' is really still an appropriate term—she can't, she just can't face it) without her mother's permission, her apparent total lack of regard for anyone else when it comes to her crusade.

Who knows. Cosima isn't a psychologist, and more to the point, she isn't even sure she feels any particular desire to know either way.

She knows enough. She's seen enough to be reasonably certain that there's nothing Delphine wouldn't do in order to try to save her, and that should make her feel needed, loved, treasured… all that usual sentimental crap.

But it can't. How can it, when she can't be sure if it's a sign of unconditional love at all?

She needs to push Delphine out of her mind, Cosima reminds herself, as firmly as she can manage. She can't waste her energy worrying about Delphine, not now. Apart from anything, even if her girlfriend really didn't know anything as to the origins of those stem cells at the start of the treatment, she still neglected to inform her when that information did eventually come to light.

Delphine betrayed her, and no matter how sorry she might now be about that, with the benefit of hindsight, Cosima isn't going to allow her to come grovelling back so she can accept her apology and allow things to return to how they were before.

Not yet. She'll allow Delphine to hate herself for a little longer, while she contemplates her next move.

She's yet to make up her mind as to where she wants to go from here.

Because she's running out of time, and she knows it. The horrible truth is that while Cosima can't condone what Delphine did, either way, deep down she knows only too well that she's running out of time. It seems as though she can't forget it for even a few moments; somehow every other conversation, every trail of thought that runs through her mind, inevitably leads back to her illness.

Delphine went about it in completely the wrong way, but there's no denying that she had the right idea. She's well and truly screwed without Kira Manning's stem cells; Cosima knows she is, she's under no illusions as far as that is concerned.

But that doesn't change the fact that she has no right to those stem cells. It's down to Sarah to make the decision as to whether or not Cosima can make use of her daughter's stem cells as a possible treatment; the fact that Cosima may well die without them changes nothing.

It's not her decision to make; Cosima might be the scientist, but that doesn't give her the right to choose who lives and who dies, make a choice at someone else's expense. It's Sarah and Kira's decision, theirs alone, and Cosima would never dream of trying to persuade them to go through with Delphine's proposed programme of treatment for that very reason.

She simply can't bear the thought of Sarah feeling obliged- forced, even- into putting Kira through bone marrow extraction for her sake.

Perhaps some would call it selflessness, but Cosima can't see it like that.

A part of her wants to. It would be easier to beg Sarah for her help if only she did see her anti-bone-marrow-requesting stance as selflessness; if that was the case she would be able to snap herself out of her martyr-like bubble. She would be able to force herself to accept, eventually at least, that there was no shame in asking for help, that as horribly unpleasant as the whole procedure would be for Kira, Sarah would somehow talk her into it for the sake of saving Cosima's life.

That's what Cosima would like to think, anyway.

She's scared. It's not so much about a powerful, near-self destructive sense of selflessness as it is a horrible sense of fear.

She _could_ psyche herself up to make the phone call. She could pick up the green 'clone phone', as Felix has named them, currently lying on the side of her desk, kick Scott out of her lab and make the call to Sarah, tell her the truth. She wouldn't beg her, of course- she doesn't have it in her to do that- but she would lay out the facts; cold, scientific, let Sarah volunteer her daughter's bone marrow rather than ask her for it upfront, put her in a difficult position.

Cosima can't shake free of the guilt she would feel at asking Sarah for something so intimate, so invasive, so horribly unfair on Kira. She can't even work out where she would begin.

But that issue aside, Cosima is more than a little afraid that Sarah would say no. Sarah is unpredictable; she's learnt that much about her in the short time she's known her. Alison can be unpredictable too, admittedly, and Beth… Beth took her completely by surprise, despite the warning signs. Hell, they're probably all unpredictable, perhaps it's genetic, a biological trait. But Sarah… Sarah is a whole different type of unpredictable; Sarah can be both fiercely loyal and woefully neglectful towards the same person, so impulsive that there seems to be no method to her behaviour at times. Cosima isn't judging her, of course she isn't; that's the last thing she'd do. Perhaps Sarah isn't going to win any best mother of the year awards any time soon, but she _does_ love Kira with all her heart, that much is evident. Perhaps she ran out on Kira a year ago, left her with a father she'd never met and seemingly didn't seem too concerned at doing it, but she loves Kira in her own way, wants the best for her even if maybe her actions can't always be interpreted as such.

Cosima would like to think that over the past few weeks since Sarah took on Beth's identity, they've become good friends. Sarah and Alison are her sisters, she supposes; the thought has always been at the back of her mind but she's never really dwelled on it before. She certainly doesn't think of Rachel as her sister, genetic issue aside, hasn't met Helena but can't imagine herself being too keen on her either given all that she's heard, sadly didn't have the chance to get to know Beth and Katja all that well (or Jennifer; Jennifer whom Cosima also has never met and yet feels something of a connection to, now). Not really. As far as Cosima is concerned they're just her genetic identicals, completely unrelated individuals whose resembling herself she can explain away with her beloved science.

Her science can't explain the close relationship she feels has formed between herself, Sarah and Alison over the past few weeks, since all this clone shit kicked off good and proper. Her science can't account for the fact that she started thinking of them as the close friends she's never really had before, has fought so hard to keep her illness from them for this long because she doesn't want to upset them, doesn't want to be the reason they start to worry about their own health on top of everything else.

She thinks of them as her sisters, in short. She would never admit it to them (obviously; Cosima doesn't get the impression that either Sarah or Alison are big on sentimental) but somewhere along the line she's started to think of them as her sisters. She supposes she sees this as her means of protecting them, in a way; it's down to her to protect them from the harsh reality of the sickness that could be about to overtake them, too. She's the scientist, after all; it's her responsibility to come up with a treatment, preferably a cure, to ensure that her sisters don't suffer this fate. It's her role in all this to be selfless for their sake; perhaps Sarah and Alison have even come to expect it of her.

But Sarah… Cosima can't know for certain whether or not Sarah feels the same way. And even if she does, it's not quite as straight-forward as that. Even if Sarah does think of her as a close friend, a sister, in the way that Cosima has come to, asking her to save her from this illness is asking Sarah to put Kira through an invasive medical procedure; putting Cosima before her own daughter, essentially.

Cosima can't bring herself to ask Sarah to do that. She has no right to ask Sarah to do that, apart from anything else. Sarah is blunt, protective; Cosima can only imagine the angry outburst she might potentially find herself on the receiving end of were she to pluck up the courage to ask for Kira's bone marrow.

The trouble is, she can't quite predict how she might react to that. Not anymore. Cosima has had disagreements with Sarah before- concerning Delphine, mostly, god she wishes now she'd listened- but those were her illness really took a hold on her. Those low-level disagreements came before the sleepless nights lying awake coughing, before the blood-stained tissues became a regular occurrence. They were before the stupid, ridiculous dreams about dying and being cut open on a cold DYAD slab, the ones she knows are just nightmares based on absolutely nothing and yet still can't quite seem to push out of her mind, and, perhaps crucially, they were before Delphine betrayed her yet again earlier today, and all the hurt and humiliation that came with that.

Cosima can't completely trust herself not to cry if Sarah were to deny her the only thing left that might give her a chance- not because she's self-entitled, of course not, but because it would be the final straw, the quite literal nail in her coffin after the week from absolute hell.

That absolutely does not mean that Sarah and Kira _have_ to give her the bone marrow she badly needs, of course. No matter what Delphine's opinion on the matter might be.

Cosima might strongly believe that she's not entitled to Kira's stem cells, but she does think that under the circumstances, she_ is_ entitled to be upset about it.

Just not while still on the phone to Sarah. Losing the plot on the phone to Sarah is only going to make her feel as though she's being guilt-tripped into saying yes, and god knows that won't go down well.

No, Cosima tells herself firmly; no. Calling Sarah is a bad, bad, idea, for all sorts of reasons. She's not even going to think of it as an option, she tells herself; now she's locked Delphine out of the lab she's just going to have to somehow forget that stem cell match ever existed. She'll just have to come up with an alternative, look at the data again, work out exactly what it is in their messed up DNA that's causing this respiratory failure and somehow come up with a solution.

For the first time in a long, long time as far as science is concerned, Cosima isn't entirely convinced she can do this.

She shivers, startling herself as the shuddering sensation comes over her. Slowly it dawns on her that she isn't entirely sure how long she's been sat here, staring into space at her desk. Time seemed to stop after that accidental overheard conversation between Scott and Delphine, Cosima muses; she's been able to concentrate on nothing else since.

She's wasted this afternoon, in short. She curses herself, arches her back and throws back her head in despair, regretting it almost instantly when the movement restricts her lungs and triggers another coughing fit.

She can't afford to be wasting time, Cosima reminds herself firmly. Not now, not having made the decision that as of right now she'll be turning her back on the only chance she has left. She has things to finish, before… before _that_; her PhD for a start. No, Cosima decides; screw it, screw her PhD.

She simply hasn't the time to be wasting messing around with her PhD, and hell, she never thought she'd hear herself say that.

It's simply not her priority. Cosima knows in her heart, as much as she desperately wants to receive her doctorate, that she most likely hasn't enough time left anyway. And even if she did, she can't justify spending her time on it, not when she has more pressing matters to occupy herself with.

Her PhD is going to be no real use to anyone, not really; it's more about the opportunities it would have led to for her. It pains Cosima to admit it, but it's true.

This research, however, the development for some sort of treatment that might potentially be needed to save her sisters' lives in the future, is crucial.

And in light of recent events, Cosima simply can't rely on Delphine to continue with her immunity research once she's… no longer around. Delphine has proved herself for the second time to be corrupt, incapable to keeping the best interests of Cosima and her genetic identicals at heart.

Cosima believes in second chances. She doesn't believe in thirds.

And so it falls to her. There's no one else; it's too early to know whether or not Ethan Duncan is going to be of any use to them, lord only knows whose side Leekie is really on and Scott doesn't even fully realise what he's gotten himself into. It's down to her now, all on her shoulders; somehow before the illness renders her incapable she's going to have to come up with a solution, preferably a means of preventing this same sickness establishing itself in Sarah or Alison, Helena (Rachel, she supposes, though given how bloody unhelpful Rachel has been Cosima isn't entirely convinced she wants to help potentially save her life- is that terrible?), or indeed any more of their genetic identicals that make themselves known in the future.

Cosima is fairly convinced she's never felt quite this hopeless before in all of her life.

They're all counting on her; she knows that. The hell she's experiencing now could be right around the corner for Sarah or Alison, even for Kira, and as things stand she's the only person left who has a hope in hell of preventing them suffering Jennifer's fate.

To use Kira's stem cells in developing that treatment… that's an absolute no-starter, Cosima has already made her mind up about that. She can't develop a treatment dependent on Kira; that's going to put a whole lot of unfair pressure on Sarah. She's going to have to come up with something else, somehow, but working alone that could take months.

Cosima isn't sure she has months.

There's a solution. A potential solution has already entered Cosima's mind, though she's reluctant to give it too much thought, refuses to pin her hopes on it.

If she were to ask Sarah for her daughter's stem cells- another tooth, maybe, less invasive than an all-out bone marrow extraction- then use it purely to buy herself some more time in which to develop some sort of gene therapy alternative… would that be so wrong? Sarah and Kira would need to agree to it, of course, but assuming they did, Cosima wonders if she might be able to live with herself for using Kira like that. It would be for the greater good, she supposes- because let's face it, at the moment she's so goddamned tired from the constant coughing and struggling to breathe that her ability to work effectively is somewhat hindered.

She'll think about it, Cosima decides, not thoroughly convinced as she plugs her memory stick into her laptop.

She'll see how much progress she can make in what remains of this afternoon, and re-evaluate the situation then.

The quantity of blood she coughs up five minutes into her task doesn't exactly fill Cosima with confidence.


	2. Chapter 2

**OK, so I've had a slight change of plan. Originally I was going to finish part II today and upload it tonight, but unfortunately I got caught in horrendous traffic on the way home and lost a good couple of hours, so that just hasn't happened. I'm not going to be able to update for about a week after today and it seemed a bit mean to leave you hanging when I promised I'd finish this before then, so I've tweaked the plan slightly, cut what was part II in half and added in some content to the last part. So this will now be a three parter, and I'll be back with part III when I can update again in about a week. Hope that's OK, sorry to have to leave this unfinished! **

**Thank you so much to Julielein and geoclaire for your reviews, you guys are awesome. I should be able to access my account for the next week so if you have any prompts you'd like me to have a go at feel free to PM them to me/submit them through my tumblr (same url as****my username on here). **

**Reviews would be absolutely wonderful. **

**Part II**

Her re-evaluation that evening causes Cosima to conclude that maybe, just maybe, desperate times really do call for desperate measures.

The last few hours haven't exactly been productive. It's partly her own fault, Cosima curses herself; her mind has been all over the place, concentration a struggle. She should have tried harder, might have made some sort of breakthrough if only she had managed to concentrate on something other than Delphine.

Then again, it's difficult, working under pressure. This sort of pressure, at least; before all this, Cosima had always prided herself upon being able to keep her cool while working under pressure.

This is different, horribly different- disastrously different, potentially.

It's far, far harder than Cosima had anticipated to maintain her concentration whilst battling against her own mortality, each coughing fit that comes over her a reminder of what she's attempting to achieve, why it's so absolutely critical for her to succeed in this.

For her sisters' sakes. Not for her.

Cosima has come to seriously doubt the hope that it isn't far too late for her now.

The other difficulty with all this is that Cosima simply isn't convinced she has the academic background to get anywhere with this by herself, not at the stage in proceedings she's reached now. That's not to say that she's been a passenger in all this up until now, relying on Delphine and Scott. Of course she hasn't, Cosima tells herself; self-assurance, more than anything, she feels as though she's failed this evening. She was managing perfectly well before Delphine and DYAD and Scott came into the picture, but that was before they strayed into respiratory treatment territory.

Cosima specialises in evolutionary development, has done ever since she embarked on her PhD last year, and even before that it had been her special interest for a long time. All the initial clone science was right up her street; she could almost have worked it into her PhD, really, if only it hadn't been for the nature of an illegal cloning experiment and DYAD's involvement making that somewhat out of the question.

This latest challenge, however… this crosses over into Immunity research territory, and that's an area of biology in which Cosima certainly can't claim to be any kind of specialist.

This is Delphine's field, and she knows it only too well. But she's damned if she's going to let Delphine in on this, trust her again after her latest revelation.

Somehow, Cosima is going to have to handle this on her own.

She's going to have to abandon ship and lock up for the night sooner or later, Cosima realises with a sigh. She could always attempt to work into the night, she supposes, but she knows from experience that it might not be the most sensible idea, not nowadays.

She's learnt the hard way that her breathing is always worse at night, and if she's going to have another meltdown, Cosima would far rather it was in the privacy of her Toronto hotel room than here.

Admittedly this lab is hers- she can control who comes in and out- but it's also DYAD, and Cosima doesn't trust DYAD. Not now. Especially not now.

If Delphine is untrustworthy, lord only knows what the rest of the DYAD institute is.

She'll keep trying a little longer, Cosima decides. She's not giving up for the night just yet. She's all too conscious of the fact that she's only going to get weaker and weaker from this point in, that this is only the beginning of the end. There's going to come a point in the near-future at which she isn't going to be able to work at all any longer, at which she will have deteriorated too far and too long for that. She'll be useless then, Cosima reminds herself bitterly. She'll be good for nothing then, alone and unloved, isolated, left to rot away in a cold, clinical laboratory because she refuses to burden her mom and dad, her clone sisters, the very, very fleeting few friends she's managed to retain from back home since her move to Minnesota. The only way she's going to be able to ensure she's remembered is by coming up with a treatment to ensure her sisters don't suffer the same fate; otherwise a handful of people will miss her for the odd few days but after the funeral is over (and Sarah and Alison won't even be able to attend the funeral, god knows that would bring up a whole host of difficult questions) she'll be quickly forgotten, a mere footnote in the conclusions of an eventual write-up of Project Leda.

Cosima is under no illusions; there's no way DYAD are going to acknowledge their subjects being actual living people, with lives, and families, and distinctly different personalities that make them far more than merely clones, when they come to write up their experiment for the history books.

In fact, she should probably forget about a funeral. Rachel will most likely produce the latest update on patent law and claim her dead identical's body for the supposed greater good. Talk about totally creepy.

She's freaked herself out now, Cosima realises with a sigh. She's freaked herself out now that she's allowed the thought to enter her head, and any thin rays of hope remaining that she might just get something productive done tonight are well and truly faded, reduced to a mere shadow.

The truth is, the thought of dying scares her. It shouldn't scare her, of course it shouldn't; as a scientist she should be familiar enough with the concept of death that she can rationalise it, face it without fear. She should be able to view it as a fact of life, a natural process, nothing to fear.

Until a few days ago, that was exactly how Cosima _did_ view death.

But that had been before she had been talked into assisting Delphine in carrying out a post mortem procedure on Jennifer.

In light of her illness, that experience had changed Cosima's perception somewhat.

Now, having had a glimpse into her future- quite literally- in those painful few minutes dealing with the remains of Jennifer's body on the slab it had been rather difficult to keep herself from pondering that _this_ was what she was going to look like, when it happened.

It had freaked her out, in a way Cosima hadn't quite expected it to. She had thought- naïvely, clearly- that she was stronger than this, professional, that she was able to view Jennifer's body as just another research project.

It's not as though she's never conducted a post mortem before. And yet it had proven to be rather different when the patient in question had lain there, so still, so cold, so… so horribly lifeless and well and truly gone, dull, dead eyes looking right up at Cosima like a ghastly premonition.

One day, she is going to look like that. At this rate, it's inevitable. One day she will be just like Jennifer: thin, pale, dead and gone claimed by the rapid spreading of tumours through her body and the property of DYAD forever, and there's absolutely nothing Cosima can do about it.

There had been something about seeing another identical version of herself strewn out across that slab that had freaked her out like nothing else she's ever experienced before.

She doesn't want to die. She doesn't want to exploit Sarah's daughter in the vain hope that it might prevent it from happening, but at the same time Cosima doesn't want to die, either. She's not quite thirty years old yet, still has a whole list of things she wants to do with her life before it's all over and she's forgotten.

Dying isn't exactly high on that list.

It's with considerable reluctance, at almost eight in the evening, that Cosima finally admits defeat. There's nothing more she can do by herself, she sighs at last; she needs Scott's expert decoding assistance before she can progress any further with this, and that's assuming she's even on the right lines. She isn't entirely confident that she won't hand over what little progress she's made this evening to Scott for assistance, only to have him tell her that he can't do it, that there's some major flaw in her reasoning she hasn't the expertise to pick out.

She'll call it a night, she decides. She'll call it a night and be sure to get into work at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning, corner Scott the moment he arrives and set him to work on her latest approach. She might be a day closer to her untimely demise come tomorrow morning, but at least she won't feel as exhausted as she does tonight. Perhaps she's kidding herself, but Cosima would like to believe that she hasn't quite reached the stage in her illness at which a good nights' sleep isn't going to make her feel any better, at which no matter what she tries she feels constantly tired, can't breathe independently, ends up on useless chemotherapy that's only delaying the inevitable and loses all her hair, hooked up constantly to an oxygen tank.

That's a way off yet, Cosima tells herself firmly, saving her work, closing down the window. She's got a long, long way to go yet before she gets that bad… hasn't she?

She means to head home after that- well, back to her hotel; there's nothing homely about her Toronto hotel room- but somehow she can't quite face the thought of it without Delphine. They've both been living in Cosima's hotel room on the nights they've actually bothered leaving the lab, what with Delphine not having her own apartment out here either, and the prospect of heading back there alone fills Cosima with a sense of sadness unlike anything she's experienced before in all her life.

She's never been in love before- not like she fell in love with Delphine. She's been romantically interested before, had a few boyfriends, the odd girlfriend here and there, but never before now has Cosima fallen half as head over heels as she did when she first met Delphine Cormier.

She needs her. Cosima would never admit to it- she doesn't think she would even admit it to Delphine, because it pains her so much to force herself to accept it- but she's come to rely on her now-ex girlfriend far more than she had previously realised. It must have been the initial realisation that she had developed Katja and Jennifer's sickness, Cosima concludes; she's fairly convinced it was that first mouthful of blood she coughed up at Toronto Airport that did it. That had been the moment in which everything had changed. She had known ever since making contact with Katja Obinger that it was a possibility, of course, had begun running tests right away after receiving her samples from Sarah in order to ascertain if her illness had been genetic, whether or not it was a potential danger to the rest of them.

She had always known it was a possibility, but that knowledge alone most certainly had not been enough to prepare her for those first symptoms making themselves apparent.

Delphine was the first person she told, Cosima reminds herself sadly as she pulls her knees up to her chest, throws a blanket over her legs and resists the temptation to sigh heavily to herself, worried it's going to set off another coughing fit. Delphine was the _only_ person she told, really; Sarah only found out a few days ago through Leekie and he and DYAD had known all along, thanks to their constant medical testing of their subjects. She trusted Delphine where she trusted no one else, confided in her within minutes of her unexpected arrival in Felix's loft and took her back openly, trustingly. And ever since then, even though she's never really thought about it quite like this before, she's relied heavily on Delphine to get her through this. Delphine has a way of making her feel safe, inexplicably so; even at her worst, when her breathing becomes so strained that the paranoia in the back of her mind she panics that maybe it's never going to pass, maybe this is it. Somehow her mere presence is enough to calm her down, reassure her, just for long enough that Cosima realises she can still breathe, after all.

She won't have that tonight. She won't have that again, not for the foreseeable future; Cosima isn't convinced she will ever be able to trust Delphine again after this. It wouldn't be the same, anyway, she tries to tell herself; how could she possibly believe Delphine now were she to tell her mid coughing fit that she's fine, that she just needs to relax and sooner or later her lungs will clear and everything will be fine?

She can't, Cosima decides, not quite as firmly as she would like. Of course she can't.

And yet she's not entirely convinced of that. Now she knows Delphine won't be coming back, that like it or not she's going to have to battle her illness alone tonight, suddenly Cosima doesn't feel quite so brave and strong and independent.

She's never had to deal with this before, not really. Cosima isn't sure she even knows how to deal with the horrific coughing fits that come over her at night by herself, and she hates how pathetic and dependent that causes her to feel. Delphine has always been there, right from the start; they had made up after Delphine's initial betrayal right as the first symptoms of her illness had appeared, and Delphine had been there through the worst of it ever since.

She's never quite thought about it in that way before, Cosima realises all of a sudden, a strange heavy feeling in her heart that she can't quite explain. She and Delphine had started things over right after Delphine had turned up to apologise at Felix's loft, just as she had confessed to Delphine that she was sick, and up until now she had never questioned it.

Is it just a coincidence? Cosima wonders now. It can't be. God, how could she have been so stupid, fallen for it _again_? Delphine is an immunologist, for god's sake, she's her immunologist monitor; how could she have possibly believed that Delphine desperately wanted her to take her back solely because she loved her with all her heart?

She really, really needs to work on this trust thing, Cosima makes a mental note. When all this DYAD shit is over, if she's somehow managed to cure herself and she's out of the danger zone for the foreseeable future, she's going to have to sort out her trust issues.

Clearly, she has far too much of it.

But whether Delphine was only ever there with her through those long, painful nights to make notes for some sort of non-consensual case study (then again, Cosima supposes, that probably shouldn't be too much of a surprise to her; since when has DYAD ever bothered with obtaining consent?), that doesn't change the fact that Cosima needs her. It doesn't make the thought of having to face her illness all alone tonight any less frightening, nor does it mean she doesn't wish with all her heart that this has all been some sort of horrible misunderstanding, that any minute now evidence for exactly that will magically appear in front of her and she'll be able to call Delphine and apologise, tell her she got it all wrong and invite her back to hers tonight after all.

She must be desperate to even be fantasising about that, Cosima sighs. She might not be clear as to exactly where Delphine's loyalties lie, what the past few weeks of their relationship have truly been about as far as her now ex-girlfriend is concerned, but Cosima has seen and heard enough regarding Kira's stem cells to know that this is most certainly not merely all some terrible misunderstanding.

She's just going to have to cope tonight. She's afraid- is that pathetic? She's been afraid for a week or so now, since her health first began the rapid decline it now seems stuck in, that she'll go to sleep and stop breathing and never wake up again. It's stupid and she knows it; Cosima might not be a medical expert, admittedly doesn't truly understand this disease that's taking its toll on her, but her own biological science background tells her that the possibility of choking to death in her sleep, or even of her lungs just stopping all of a sudden, is extremely unlikely. At this stage in proceedings, at least. That may well be what happens to her eventually, but Cosima knows deep down, when she's alert enough to be rational about this, that it's not going to happen for a while yet. She's still breathing on her own, she reminds herself; Jennifer was hooked up to an oxygen tank in the final entries of her video journal.

Surely she doesn't need to properly panic until she's oxygen dependent, too?

Delphine knows, somehow. Cosima has never shared with her that particular irrational fear, but somehow Delphine just knows. Neither has Delphine ever mentioned it but Cosima has worked it out.

She's been waking up abruptly in the middle of the night rather often recently, not always because she can't breathe but sometimes because she's restless enough that she can't seem to stay asleep for more than an hour or so at a time.

It's a different experience to being dragged from sleep by her own hacking, gasping for breath. On those occasions Cosima's awakening is so violent that she seems to wake Delphine a while before she's properly alert herself, the previous peace and solitude too far disturbed to possibly know what it might have looked like just a few moments before.

Each and every time Cosima has awoken pulled from a nightmare of late, it has been to find Delphine's fingers pressed firmly to her wrist, the reassuring thudding of her pulse reverberating through them both.

Cosima would never admit it, because to do so would be to admit that she's far more afraid of dying than she's willing to let on, but the gesture makes her feel inexplicably safe. She's not convinced it's a totally failsafe strategy, not when Delphine is sleeping, too- but somehow she feels as though it's her safety net, a final frontier to keep her from slipping over the edge.

Except that now that safety net has been ripped from her, Cosima is going to have to learn to cope without it.

She's a little embarrassed by the intensity of the fear that thought stirs within her.

Perhaps she should just stay here tonight, Cosima considers; maybe it would be better than a cold, empty bed. She has the sofa, after all; her back will probably kill in the morning, but it would at least take her mind off the rawness of her throat from all the coughing, the heavy aching in her lungs.

As much as DYAD unnerve her, Cosima isn't convinced her hotel room without Delphine would be any better.

Facing tonight without Delphine is in a whole league of its own on Cosima's anxiety chart.

She wants some company, in all honesty. Alison might be the one who brings the matter up when she feels left out of their dysfunctional excuse for a family, voices those feelings (Cosima can't quite work Alison out at times, fails to understand the logic by which she chooses what to blurt out and what to bottle up and make a mess of coping with by herself), but Cosima has experienced her own fair share of loneliness. Sarah and Alison see far more of each other in person than Cosima ever manages despite only being round the corner nowadays; she hates to say it, but Sarah hadn't been far off when she had bluntly described her new lab as 'science jail.' Cosima has barely been away from it since Leekie had handed her the key, and she feels well and truly like the odd clone out, as a result.

Would Sarah go through with the bone marrow procedure for Alison? Cosima wonders stupidly, not realising the thought is about to enter her head until it's too late to turn back. What if she would do it for Alison, but she wouldn't do it for her?

Stupid question, she tells herself; there is no 'what if.' Sarah isn't obliged to put Kira through bone marrow extraction, and besides, it's irrelevant, because Cosima won't be asking her.

Timing is clearly against her, because it's at that moment that a particularly heavy coughing fit hits her.

In that moment as she fights to breathe, leans heavily against her desk for support, Cosima would love nothing more than that goddamned bone marrow and all of its medical treasures.


End file.
